


Hope like a Flower in the Dark

by tuesday



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Hanahaki Disease, Happy Ending, Mage Hawke (Dragon Age), Pining, Purple Hawke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-25 05:00:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16654705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuesday/pseuds/tuesday
Summary: It was a mage's disease.





	Hope like a Flower in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [infernal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/infernal/gifts).



> Thank you so much to Isis, whose corrections, advice, and input made this work considerably better!

Varric was funny, handsome, and charismatic. At some point, his nose had been broken and poorly set, which somehow gave him an air of rakish charm. His hair gleamed when it was pulled back into a messy half-knot, and it fell endearingly into his face when he left it loose. His smile, whether self-deprecating or genuinely amused, was a constant friendly invitation to share in the joke. And in the Dark Roads, Hawke discovered that he was also painfully, deeply kind. 

Her brother was going to live—Anders had led them to the Grey Wardens in time—but she didn't expect she'd be seeing much of him from now on. She put a bright face on it, laughed over how Carver had always wanted to make a name for himself anyway and this was a good way for him to get out from under the shadow he'd always complained she cast, but he was still her baby brother, the only sibling she had left alive in the world. Where he was going, she couldn't protect him anymore.

"Chin up." Varric slipped a warm, broad hand into hers. His calluses caught comfortingly against her own. "No matter how far away Junior gets, he'll find some way to let you know how much he disapproves of your decisions."

Hawke barked a laugh, better than a sob, and tasted something sweet, almost floral, in the back of her throat. "You always know just what to say."

"Nah." Varric's eyes were dark. Hawke suspected he was thinking of his own brother. Varric smiled all the same. "Not always."

—

Down there, deep in the dark and corruption, so long into the expedition that Hawke was beginning to wonder if they'd ever again see the light of day, a flower bloomed. When they stepped foot back onto the surface, loaded down with treasure and the laughing masks they draped carelessly (carefully) over their own grief, Hawke carried it with her.

It was the first flower, but there were many more to come.

—

It was a mage's disease. 

The Chantry claimed it was the Maker finding another way to mark them out. Hawke thought it was just that the rest of the population didn't have enough mana or lyrium running through their veins to support it. Maybe the Chantry's precious templars had it, too, but they just kept it under wraps. Either way, it wasn't something the majority of the population had to concern themselves with, and it was just one more thing mages had to hide.

Mages like Hawke, staring disbelieving at the petal in her hand.

"You're joking," Hawke said in the quiet and privacy of her own room, a welcome change from being crowded together in her uncle's hovel. She'd been able to loose the cough that had slowly been building from a light tickle at the back of her throat without any concern for worrying Mother. 

(Not that Mother was much concerned with Hawke these days. Not since nearly getting her little brother killed and then bundling him off to the Grey Wardens without so much as a goodbye.) 

She'd coughed long and hard and hacked up this unassuming little petal which, no matter her stare, stayed firmly, defiantly real. Pleadingly, plaintively, Hawke repeated, "You're joking."

But no. As with the rest of Hawke's life, the joke was on her.

—

"It's not like it's a death sentence," Hawke told herself later. It could be, but it didn't _have_ to be. All she had to do was turn herself over to the Templar Order, and they could Smite her unfortunate condition into submission—if she were lucky, and they liked her enough to drain her of mana on a semi-regular basis. More likely, she’d just be given the brand. 

But at least she wouldn’t have to worry about choking to death on flowers anymore; in fact, she wouldn’t have to worry about anything at all.

The nicest part of being a wildly eccentric rich person was that no one bothered to ask her what she was cackling inappropriately over to herself. Dog came up and licked her hand. She lolled about in front of the fireplace and played tug of war with him with a small length of rope.

Malcolm had always said falling in love was dangerous, had always cautioned her against it. Better to find friendship. "Love freely, but not romantically."

Malcolm had been a bit of a hypocrite. He'd pursued Mother with whole-hearted focus. Then again, when your life was on the line—

Hawke thought it over, considered it. Varric was, as far as she knew, single. They got along well, shared similar senses of humor and codes of ethics—anything for your friends, but there were lines you didn't cross. He seemed to like her well enough and was probably the best friend she had in this city, was maybe the best friend she'd ever had. He was kind. He cared. If she told him—

Well, that right there was why she didn't want to. Maker knew he'd try. If he couldn't love her—because of the human thing, the mage thing, the thing where she wasn't the mysterious Bianca he'd named his crossbow after, because it was Hawke and she was a walking, talking, unmitigated disaster—he'd probably blame himself, internalize it and carry the guilt with him. 

Already, she could see him blaming himself for Bartrand, for his moment of seeming madness and subsequent disappearance. Varric swore he was angry at Bartrand when he wasn't pretending the betrayal didn't bother him, but as masterful a liar as Varric was, those lies were flimsy, easy to see through. He did the same with things that were smaller and less important—which was everything, in comparison to one's only family leaving them to die in the dark.

Once she caught the big, bold lies, it was easier to see the smaller ones, the way he tried to let the troubles of their beloved, fucked up city roll off him and instead took them in, took them on for his own. 

It was in the way he looked out for Merrill, but let his lips thin when he looked the rest of the alienage over, too, the expression on his face one of, "I could fix that; I _should_ fix that," before he smiled, chuckled, and made some blithe comment about how he could probably find Merrill somewhere nicer to live. It was in the way he complained good-naturedly over Anders drawing attention to himself even as he quietly paid the guards to look the other way when they wandered by the clinic of an apostate who handed out mage rights pamphlets to anyone who'd stand still long enough to take them. It was in the way he caught Hawke looking over some of Bethany's old things, what few had survived their flight from Fereldan and which had somehow ended up in Hawke's bag and then her room. For someone who hadn't even known her then, Varric had looked pained as she’d slid the tiny wooden mabari figurine Malcolm had hand-carved back onto her shelf, then had smiled, bright and easy and false, as he'd said he was there to take her on an adventure.

Varric took on his friends' responsibilities and he blamed himself for not taking on the responsibilities of the city as a whole. It was what he did. Hawke knew her feelings would be just one more burden he'd claim for his own.

She could manage this. She could starve it out. She couldn't die if there were no more flowers, and _they_ would die without something to feed on. It was early on. How hard could it be to fall out of love?

—

She cut back slowly, stopped by the Hanged Man a little less often than she liked, chose other friends to accompany her on her adventures. 

Isabela appreciated the extra coin. Fenris enjoyed the opportunity to snark at her. Merrill had fun seeing new parts of the city and meeting new people to set on fire. Aveline wasn't exactly pleased to be pulled away from her job, but she always followed all the same. Anders turned her down as often as not, but considering she'd just turned _him_ down, Hawke couldn't blame him. Hawke doubted he'd let his nascent crush go so far as her own problem, that it would become anything more than budding feelings quickly pruned. She wondered if flirting before you could fall in love was another lesson she’d missed out on with the rest of a Circle education. 

Hawke cut back slowly, but it didn't help.

"C'mon, grumpy, let's burn off all that frustration a better way," Isabela said one day as Hawke kicked a charred would-be mugger's not-quite-corpse. She hooked an arm around Hawke's after she straightened from liberating the mugger’s coin purse. "I heard there's going to be a game of Wicked Grace at the Hanged Man tonight."

"How's that different from any other night?" Hawke resisted being pulled in a new direction. The job was done, and she was thinking she'd just go home.

"Varric's busy with guild stuff," Isabela said matter-of-factly.

"And that's relevant because—?"

Isabela stopped pulling. Hawke started to tilt over until Isabela caught her. "I'm not stupid, Hawke. You're avoiding him."

"I'm not—" Hawke wilted at Isabela's deadpan stare. She admitted, "I'm not _not_ avoiding him."

"Well, whatever you're doing, you'll be free to do it this evening." Isabela started dragging them in the right (wrong) direction again. This time, Hawke let herself be dragged.

Of course, then it turned out Isabela had lied—and it was Hawke's own fault for trusting a rogue—and Varric was holding court in the middle of the tavern. Isabela disappeared into the crowd before Hawke could show her wrath. Hawke sighed and shoved some no-name goon out of the seat to Varric's right.

"I was talking to him," Varric said, but he sounded more amused at her presumption than angry at the interruption.

"And now you're talking to me." Hawke flagged down a server for a cup of her own ale. Well, that or she stole it from someone's hands. They were practically one and the same. "And I'm much prettier and funnier."

"More modest, too."

"Plus I’m infinitely more intelligent." The goon shot her a dirty look. She threw a dirty gesture back. Isabela reappeared to tug him urgently away. Hawke looked at Varric, whose smile was a little lopsided, but definitely there. "Kind of a shit friend, though."

"Hey, that's my friend you're talking down." Varric bumped her shoulder with his own. "Go easy on her. She seems like she's going through a rough time."

Hawke snorted. "Not an excuse."

"But maybe a reason." Varric's smile firmed up a little, gentle, friendly. "Want to talk about it?"

"Maker, no." Hawke smiled back at him. "Maybe a few hands of Grace, instead?"

"Whatever you need."

Hawke kept her smile. She knew he meant it. "Sure."

She knew he meant it, but that didn't make it true.

—

It got a little easier, after that. Sure, it was getting worse, the coughing fits growing more frequent, but it wasn't like it had been getting any better before. She’d met one templar she could trust to provide the occasional assistance. Despite how the fiasco played out with Thrask’s mage daughter and Hawke’s part in tracking her down, he was sympathetic to Hawke’s little problem. He wanted to help. He snuck out of the Gallows once a month or so to sit with her in an abandoned house in Lowtown and press her magic down, down, down, until she felt like she was being ground into the dirt from the pressure. It didn’t help much, but it kept her going. And if nothing else, she could still turn herself in. 

Oh, that never stopped being funny.

"Something you want to share with the class, Hawke?" Isabela looked interested. Varric just shook his head, smiling. Fenris—had backed away a bit. You set a whole building on fire _one time_ —okay, maybe it was more than once. Still.

"Nah, just—a thought." Hawke finished looting the rogue templar they’d come across on their latest adventure. "Let's go."

Isabela and Fenris took either side. Varric watched her back. The disease was worse, but it was easier, more comforting, to have Varric there, lurking in her shadow. Maybe she was dying, but no one lived forever.

—

No one lived forever, but that didn't mean that each death didn't cut into her, carve out another piece of her soul. Carver might have lived, but he was beyond her reach, only sending the occasional letter home. Bethany—Hawke tried her best not to think of Bethany. (All too often, she failed.) An uncle who barely deserved the title and whom she hadn't met until adulthood couldn't really fill the gap. In many ways, it felt like Mother was all she had left.

She'd take a hundred more evenings of Mother's disapproving silences over that one moment of her strained smile as she stared up at her and said, "You've always made me so proud."

 _"You've always made me so proud."_ Life was a joke, and Mother had died with a lie on her lips.

Later, much later that night, Hawke built a fire in her room, pouring anguish like agony out of her hands and into the fireplace. Varric stood in her shadow. He watched her back. Something was building in Hawke, tremors wracking at her even as she tried to wring herself out. She was tired. The fight, the aftermath, the conversation with her uncle all dragged at her. She let loose one last blast of flame, then pulled her hands back. She clenched them into fists, but it didn't stop the trembling.

Varric placed a warm, steady hand at her shoulder. Gently, he drew her around, down. She had to stoop, but Varric had broad shoulders, and his feet were planted solidly in the earth. He held her until what was building broke, wave after wave of it crashing over her. He held her longer yet.

Eventually, they moved to the bed, Hawke sitting sprawled with her back to the headboard, Varric perched at the edge of the mattress. He spent the night, but not in any circumstance Hawke might have longed for. He was a friend comforting another friend in her time of grief. They sat together, hand in hand, sometimes talking, but often not. The fire crackled, and Hawke's room was hot, but she'd gone cold inside. Varric's body beside hers felt like the only point of warmth.

In the morning, when the sun peeked over the horizon and into Hawke's window like a particularly unwelcome voyeur, Varric stood and stretched. He gathered her hands in his, one more time. He pressed a kiss to the middle knuckle of her right hand. He stood there, head bowed, hair obscuring his eyes, for a long, long moment, and all Hawke could do was quietly stare. Finally, he said, "You're tough, Hawke. You'll make it through this."

Hawke summoned a wan smile. She spoke past the obstruction in her throat. "I can make it through anything."

"That's the spirit," Varric said.

Hawke waited until he was gone—not just from the bedroom, but well on his way down the road to her house—to let loose the loud, hacking coughs that had been building overnight. She cast the flowers, fragile but whole, into the guttering flames of the fire.

—

Sometimes, it felt like it was all take and no give, Hawke's grasping hands pulling Varric down with her. It was nice to be able to return the favor, to make sure he kept a brother, too. It was nice, but it didn't feel like enough. She was running out of time to balance the scales.

Hawke had had years, had made hasty deals and poor judgment calls, but Thrask’s help was coming more and more rarely, Meredith’s paranoia ramping up and bringing everyone, mage and templar alike, under suspicion. He couldn’t take the risk, and Hawke didn’t need the additional scrutiny. It had been months since Hawke had last seen him. Every breath she took tasted of a flower foreign to Kirkwall's soil. Some days it felt like she couldn’t breathe at all.

Varric was telling stories of her protecting the city from pirates with Isabela. Hawke wondered if this was all she would be when she was gone, a collection of stories and skewed recollections by a man who cared too much and never in the way she most wanted. She wondered what stories he'd tell of her life and what story he'd spin of her death.

She hoped he made it a good one.

—

Staring down at the Arishok, lungs full, grip shaky, Hawke wondered if this would be how it ended. She'd slit his throat with her staff, everyone politely pretending she hadn't shocked him into helpless spasms of nerves firing along with a lightning strike or five of electricity first, but not before he'd struck her so hard into the pillars of the room's entryway that she'd momentarily blacked out. Her left arm was broken and hung loose and useless at her side. Her ribs felt sharp and wrong in her chest.

"Hawke—" Her companions stepped forward, concern in their faces, Anders looking like he was ready to cast a healing spell then and there, and Isabela like she was prepared to dive forward and shore up Hawke's listing body if needed, but Hawke only had eyes for Varric. His expression was devastating, devastated. His hand was reaching forward.

Of course Meredith had to barge in at that moment, just in time to declare Hawke Champion and watch her faint with the honor.

—

Hawke came to in her own house, in her own bed. Anders hovered over her. Isabela lurked by the door as though she was prepared to shank any unannounced visitors. Varric had dragged a chair over to the bedside and, despite Anders side-eyeing him, had claimed Hawke's right hand for his own. 

"You really gave us a scare," Varric said. A grim smile played about his lips. "Maybe you should think twice about challenging a Qunari twice your size—"

"Three times," Hawke interjected, voice rough. "At least."

Varric soldiered on, ignoring her admittedly poor attempt at banter for once, "—when you're at less than thirty percent lung capacity."

Well. Shit. Varric's expression didn't look too impressed. Anders's, either. Anders added, "You could have told me. You think mages haven't figured out ways of dealing with this besides ignoring it until it's either embrace death or a sudden and miraculous reversal in feelings? I'm a healer and I thought—I thought I was your friend."

Hawke stared at her bedroom ceiling. Good old trusty bedroom ceiling. Had that crack always been there? "You are my friend." She swallowed. It was easier, now. "All of you are."

"Could've fooled me," Varric said, but he had a death-grip on her hand. Hawke was afraid to look at his face. He huffed a sigh. "You are literally the only person I know who would rather die of embarrassment than ask for help."

Hawke tried a sheepish smile on for size. It was a poor fit. She looked at each of her companions in turn and knew she wasn't getting out of this easily—or at all. Awkwardly, she said, "Help?"

This time, Varric's sigh was half-laugh. "Yeah. We're already doing that." He sat back. Hawke was beginning to think he'd never relinquish the hand. "So who is it? Broody? Daisy? That truly unfortunate templar?"

The downside to the Thrask situation was that Varric thought she'd been having an affair, which certainly sounded a lot more fun than emotionally blackmailing an already sympathetic templar over his dead mage daughter in order to convince him to sap her of magic on his rare day off just so she could live a little longer. The upside was that Varric was so disgusted in her taste in men that he'd never pressed further. 

Hawke's sheepish smile, ill-fitted and ill-suited, slid off.

It was a good point to pretend. There were a hundred names, real and fake, that she could have pulled out of a metaphorical hat. Instead, she quirked her lips into something a little more bitter, a lot more real. Looking into his eyes, Hawke squeezed Varric's hand. 

He stared back at her a moment—then a bit longer still. In a strangled voice, he said, "Blondie, Rivaini, can we get a bit of privacy?"

"Remember, she needs rest," Anders said, as though she weren't right there.

"It was just getting good," Isabela protested. Anders pushed her out in front of him.

Varric waited until the door had closed and their footsteps echoed down the hall to say anything. "Me, huh?"

Hawke honestly couldn't think of a single thing to say, her clever tongue having deserted her. Weary, but accepting, Hawke agreed, "You."

"You're an idiot." Varric's grasp had loosened, but he was still holding her hand. 

"I'm aware."

"You could have died."

"And honestly, I'm just as excited as the rest of you that that's apparently unnecessary."

"It was never necessary." Varric's expression was serious as he lifted her hand. He kissed the center knuckle as he held her gaze. He repeated, "Never." It sounded like a promise, like, _Always._

"Oh," Hawke said.

"You're an idiot." Varric turned her hand, pressed a kiss to her palm. "But then, so am I."

"I'd say that makes us well-matched."

Varric stood and leaned over the bed, knocking their foreheads gently together. "Sweetheart, I'm begging you: don't ever do that to me again."

"No promises."

Varric gave a sound that could easily be mistaken for a laugh and finally, finally kissed her mouth. 

—

Hawke had a long road to recovery ahead of her. Magic could only do so much, and she'd done herself damage not only in the fight, but in all the months and years preceding it. She'd been named Champion, and somehow she didn't think that quite fit Flemeth's offhand prophecy about some momentous occasion coming when Hawke would need to leap. It didn’t fit the feeling Hawke had had upon listening that destiny awaited with an open hand and a clenched fist, and she somehow knew there was worse waiting for her than a duel to her near-death with the Arishok. The city was, frankly, a disaster, and Varric with his connections, his kindness, and his tendency to care too much was likely to be in the thick of it, even if he did his best to hide his involvement from all but the most discerning eyes.

But that was the future. In the now, they had maybe five minutes before Anders came back in with reinforcements, like an angry mother hen. 

It was worth it. It was all, every second of it, absolutely worth it. In this one, simple thing, Hawke had no regrets.

"Not even that you didn't say something much, much sooner?"

"Varric, shut up and kiss me before our friends get back."

Varric did.


End file.
